Star Gazing
by Stealth Dragon
Summary: Sometimes you don't get what you ask for when you want it, you get it when you need it.


**Star Gazing**

by

Stealth Dragon

Rating – K

Disclaimer – I don't own SGA or it's characters. Bummer, dude.

Synopsis – Sometimes you don't get what you ask for when you want it, you get it when you need it.

A/N: A little Christmasy, spiritual piece with lots of religious aspects, so if you don't like that then don't read, and especially no burning or sacrilegious comments. I've said this once before in another story – whatever your beliefs, please have respect enough not to trash mine. Inspired by some Christmas music I was listening to. I'm also taking liberties with John's potential past (yep, his mom again). Season three spoilers, so beware!

Also, if some of you don't already know, I don't use betas. Rest assured I go over my stories several times before posting but there are always a few mistakes that manage to slip past.

SGA

John Sheppard gave into spirituality in only two ways. The first was when he was pushed into it by desperation. Hitting rock bottom, end of his rope, now or never desperation that had him begging to no unseen deity in particular to get him out of this mess. When that didn't work, he gave into spirituality just to have someone to blame, to cuss out, to rant, rave, and rage against until all energy was depleted and he was back to being religiously indifferent. So he couldn't call himself an atheist with all the giving in he did. He felt himself more a grudging agnostic. Prayer wasn't part of his repertoire, but he had respect enough for the belief's of others not to knock them down for it. Not like McKay who liked to refute everything that couldn't be proved true by the five senses and a math theorem. The senses couldn't be relied upon, so John didn't put much faith in that either.

It was the whole faith thing he had trouble with. He'd tried the faith thing once, twice, way more than that when he hit rock bottom again and again. Death, loss, and solitude he'd prayed against and they still stuck with him. So he'd given up on even possibly considering that someone up there cared about him. It became back and forth later on. Saving those men, then the black mark. Coming to Atlantis, then shooting his CO. Making friends, then almost losing them, even nearly killing them. All off again, on again to make him start wondering if the someone up there just considered him as nothing more than a rat in a maze existing purely for entertainment purposes.

He was certain of it now as he sat huddled in a cramped cave before a small, pathetic fire clawing sickeningly at the frigid air. John was as hunkered down into his coat as he could get without snapping his own spine or crushing his own spleen against his ribs. Hunger was a black hole in the pit of his stomach, and he'd licked clean the last of his Powerbar wrappers.

John looked away from the fire to the solid wall of white. A gust of wind found its way into his shelter to spit stinging shards of snow into his face. John winced and shivered harder. No winter wonderlands here. The wind had the snow whipping at speeds John was certain could strip flesh from bone. No one was going to find him in this. Not that he accepted the fate, it was just a statement of fact. He'd been on this world a week, because the snow storm refused to let up. It had come without warning like the sandstorms in Afghanistan, just as Sheppard was heading back to the jumper after a quick patrol of the area.

Needless to say, he'd never found his way back. Chances were good the others hadn't as well. The only difference was, he'd gone off alone, while Ronon and Teyla had stayed with McKay.

John refused to ponder if they were all right. He didn't want to mull over the possibility that they weren't. He couldn't handle it right now.

John winced again at another slap of snow to the face. Cold air slip into the collar of his coat, down his neck to caress his collarbones. John sucked in a shuddering breath and hunched his shoulders tighter.

A week, he'd been stranded a week. Wasn't there supposed to be something going on in a week?

John jolted. _Christmas_. Elizabeth insisted they stick by the earth calendar, and according to that calendar, today was Christmas. Or maybe it was Christmas Eve. Night and day didn't exactly continue to exist in a blizzard.

John chuckled caustically. _Merry freakin' Christmas to me. _He wondered if this was revenge for all the times he'd ranted and raged.

John liked Christmas to the extent of the occasional shindig. He'd stopped looking forward to it when there was no longer anything to look forward to. Mom went away against her will when a car accident left her in a coma. After she died, Dad didn't even try to put any effort into maintaining the routine that had been mom's in the first place. Going to church, buying gifts, wrapping them, baking... John ended up being the cook. Dad could never stand being at home, and John was pretty sure he hated it even more when he was around John. That was the problem with kids looking like their parents – painful reminders when one parent was out of the picture.

John lowered his face to rest his forehead on his bony knees. He was still chuckling, and he didn't even know why. Life was just funny, one big boot up the butt cosmic joke. The only person who had actually cared about him on that little blue marble called earth had been ripped from him. And just when he'd started to get used to having others who cared about him, chances were good that they were probably dead.

John's head snapped up. _No!_ He wouldn't go there. He'd promised himself he wouldn't.

He lowered his head again. He wasn't accepting his fate, and he wasn't denying it.

_You want me dead, then kill me already. Just... Please kill me. _It really did feel like a game. He should have been dead long before this. How many times now? How many brinks, precipices, and handshakes with the Reaper? John was certain each time around brought him inches closer to the pearly gates or white tunnels or whatever it was you passed through when you died. The wraith feeding should have been the epilogue to his existence, then the alien vampire had to go all noble out of the blue and fix what he'd broken. John had momentarily given into the spiritual then, and couldn't get the thought of miracles out of his head.

Then he'd shot McKay.

Life was weird. If there was some massive cosmic plan, then he didn't get it. A friend once told him that he wasn't supposed to get it – not all of it, not yet.

_Things do happen for a reason._ She'd once said in that all knowing way of hers. Never patronizing, just stating it all like it was a fact. His mother had believed the same.

"Life is like praying," she had said. "When you pray for something, you never get that something when you want it, you get it when you need it. There are aspects in life that you won't understand until you're ready to understand. Understanding does not come when you want it to, it comes when you need it to."

John had believed that. He was still waiting for enlightenment, just not holding out any hope for it.

"You have to have the bad with the good, John. Without the bad, you'd never know the good."

Sometimes the good liked to make itself scarce. John didn't want to lose these bits of wisdom. They were pretty much all he had of his mother. Time and experience were making them hard to hold onto. He'd almost forgotten them completely the day his mother had finally succumbed and died. On that day, he'd hated her. He thought she'd given up, and he'd screamed at her lifeless body, accusing her of abandoning him. On the day of her funeral, he'd hated himself for hating her, and didn't blame her if she hated him back. He'd only been twelve at the time.

Maybe that's why he was here. Punishment for his hatred, for his blame, and ranting and raging at the woman who had done nothing but loved him.

He suddenly missed her, and not in the wistful way of one thinking back and longing for better days. He missed her with the same pain and longing he'd felt on the day she'd finally been lowered into the ground. It was a pain that was a vice around his chest and throat. It closed off his airway and threatened to crush his heart into fragments. He tried to blink away the burn in his eyes, and felt warm moisture slide down his face. It settled at the corner of his lips, and he licked it away soaking salt into the tip of his tongue.

His aunt had told him, after the funeral, that his mother was with God. God would look after her, and also look after him. It had been hard to buy while being buried under all that pain. It was even harder now. It was easier to believe the opposite as it gave him something to vent on.

He wasn't even going to try and pray. There was no use to it.

God wasn't going to help a man who hated Him.

John coughed hard trying to clear the weight trying to settle on his lungs. He was tired, knew he shouldn't sleep, but didn't care at this point. Better to die unaware in his sleep than fighting against the inevitable and making it drag out. So John drifted to the moan of the wind and snap of the fire.

His mom had loved Christmas music. The quiet stuff mostly, the lively stuff while she was baking. John could smell the sweet scent of sugar cookies, and the spiced scent of gingerbread. The house was always warmer when she was baking. Her favorite song had been Oh Holy Night. She'd play it over and over, and it was always the song she'd sing when asked to do a solo for the church choir. She'd hum it when she and John would sit in the darkness watching the lights of the tree wink in multi-colored, random cadence. Her hands would run through his hair, and her voice would be audible only for him to lull him to sleep. She'd hum it when they would sit outside on Christmas Eve if the night was clear, and stare at the stars, trying to guess which star was the star of Bethlehem. It had been her song, her holiday, her joy.

John missed it as much as he missed her.

Her humming stuck with him better than her bits of wisdom. The music was breathed into his ear, pouring through him like warm water, inciting a soft touch on his head and the scent of things baking. He felt warm, comfortable, and was waiting to be carried off to bed like his mother always did when he drifted off. Then when morning would come, he would find her in the kitchen, still humming as she cooked.

_Why did you leave me?_

"I never did, John."

_Why was I alone, then?_

"You never were."

_Don't leave me again. I don't want to be alone._

"You never will be."

Soft, warm hands ran through John's hair, and a soft voice breathed a song into his ear.

John jolted awake to the snap of the fire, and no other sound. He blinked sticky film from his eyes and turned his head to the entrance of the cave. He saw a floor of snow, and a wall of starry night sky. The blizzard had finally blown itself out.

John unfolded himself from his huddle with joints cracking and stiffened muscles pulling painfully. He winced and grunted with heart pounding as it forced his sluggish blood through his veins. He crawled from the tunnel into the snow, pushed himself achingly to his feet, and stretched until his limbs felt loose enough to work. For the first time in a week he was finally afforded an unobstructed view of his surroundings that had his eyes rounding over.

He was lucky he hadn't broken his neck. He was on a ledge, a massive ledge, which explained why the going had been rough and draining at one point. He thought he'd been heading to the top of a hill, not a ledge. He could have fallen off if he hadn't found that cave.

John moved to the lip of the drop off and stared down. His heart leaped into his throat. The drop off had to be at least thirty feet straight down. He walked the small perimeter of the area. Drop off all around except for the right side where he'd climbed up.

John returned to the edge of the ledge across from the cave and dropped down into the snow. He could see the valley all the way to the horizon where it faded into the night sky. And a lot of sky it was, a dome of perfect black and rivers of stars. John craned his neck to stare upwards. The moonlit fog of his breath streamed from his mouth curling and rolling like gray veils. He peered over his shoulder at the snow that hadn't been altered by his feet. He'd always liked the way moonlight got the snow to glitter, like stars tossed on the ground. John grabbed a handful in his stiff fingers and tossed it over the precipice to watch it sparkle like crystal shards and drift soft as powder. He loved snow. In Antarctica, it had been the major source of killing boredom. Building snowmen mostly, which he would put in the cockpit of someone else's helicopter or in the seat of whatever vehicle was being repaired that day. He and a few of the stir-crazy scientists suffering from cabin fever had even built an igloo once, just to see if they could. One guy had even spent the night in it.

John gathered more snow and patted it into a snowball. He pulled his arm back and tossed the snow like a football for a forward pass. The snowball soared beyond sight into the darkness until moonlight flashed off its surface as it descended. John smiled in satisfaction, and gathered more snow for another ball. He was distracted from the effort by the start of a light show in the sky. Aurora Borealis rippled in iridescent flames above John's head. Great walls of color rolling like waves across the sky, larger and brighter than the ones that would shimmer over Antarctica. The colors danced over the snow in the sporadic cadence of Christmas lights.

John pulled his legs to his chest and tilted his head back as far as his neck would let him. He could barely see the stars through the curtains of light. He wanted to reach out and touch those lights. They seemed large enough, and close enough to. He imagined they would be warm, maybe even soft, like a blanket that he wished he could be pulled into.

There must have been some truth to the mind over matter thing. John didn't feel cold anymore, and since he didn't feel tired he supposed it wasn't a bad thing. He felt calm, comfortable. Cliché as it was to think, he felt at peace. No more wanting to rage or rant, just sit and enjoy as he waited for whatever outcome was in store for him. If he died, then he died, and it wouldn't be such a bad way to go. He was in the company of something spectacularly beautiful. McKay would have called it the product of solar winds. His mother would have called it magic. He liked her explanation better.

She would have loved this. Stargazing and light-gazing all in one. John could almost hear her humming pour through him, and feel her warmth pressed to his side, the weight of her arm against his back, and her slender fingers through his hair. She smelled like ginger-bread and sugar cookies.

"Colonel Sheppard!"

John flinched and blinked, snapping from lethargy as though just waking up. He glanced around searching for the source of the voice, and found it scaling into view on the right side of the ledge. Teyla's head first, then her shoulders before she paused to stare at John like a wide-eyed doe caught in the headlights.

"John!" She yelped, and a massive smile broke out on her face. She looked back over her shoulder. "I found him. He is here!" She scrambled over the edge and rushed to John, dropping to her knees beside him. She placed one hand on his shoulder as she assessed his condition with her eyes.

John stared at her in silent, overwhelming disbelief.

"Colonel, are you all right? Are you injured?" She pulled off her glove and pressed the back of her hand to his cheek. Whatever she felt made her gasp sharply and drop her smile. "You are freezing. We need to get you warm. We need blankets!" She shouted over her shoulder, then looked back at John. "Colonel, are you injured? You must tell me." She ran her hands down his arms, over his chest, down his flanks, then along his legs searching for broken bones.

Her touch proved her presence wasn't a dream. John's mind still couldn't accept it as otherwise. Miracles weren't supposed to happen to people mad at God.

"I didn't even pray," he whispered. Teyla looked up at him. Worry grappled with relief in her gaze.

"What did you say?" she asked.

John shook his head, and he gave her a tired smile. "Nothing."

_sssssssssssssssssssssss_

The ledge had room enough for the jumper to land, and Teyla was able to bundle him inside to be wrapped up in layer upon layer of blankets. Ronon was there, and McKay, along with Carson. Lorne was piloting, and Stackhouse was the copilot.

They'd been searching for Sheppard the entire week. Lorne and Stackhouse had arrived in a second jumper with Dr. Beckett. They'd found the first jumper, brought everyone back to Atlantis in the second leaving the first for Sheppard to find when the storm died down. When they returned to find the jumper still empty, they'd searched above the atmosphere for him. McKay hypothesized that the small cave must have blocked John's life sign readings. They hadn't picked it up until after the storm had passed.

Beckett's quick exam in the jumper showed John to be hypothermic. A more thorough exam in the infirmary confirmed it, along with him being malnourished and a little dehydrated. Beckett kept him in the infirmary the rest of the night for observation and to deal with the dehydration. When no illnesses manifested, he was allowed to rest and recuperate in his quarters. Rest and eat were the only orders.

"And you're to fight the temptation ta indulge in whatever teeth rotting gut-killers they have lined up for tonight," Beckett said after John was situated in the wheelchair for a ride to his room.

John looked up at Beckett and furrowed his brow in confusion. "Snacks?"

Carson nodded, then mirrored John's look. "Hasn't anyone told ya?"

"Told me what?"

Carson sighed heavily, passing his hand through his hair. "Daft buggers," he muttered. "I suppose they were too caught up in the moment of you bein' alive and all... There's ta be a party tonight. Part in celebration of your lots' safe return, and part Christmas party. A few marines had dropped the hint about havin' a party but Dr. Weir had been a bit reluctant. Then she got so bloody happy ta have you all back that she let anyone who was interested throw together a last minute celebration. And let me tell ya, those lads and lasses went all out. Ya'd think they'd been preparin' for this since they first stepped foot in Atlantis. They've got decorations comin' out the ear and don't even ask me where the tree came from..."

News of a party wasn't what boggled Sheppard.

"It's Christmas?"

Carson nodded, beaming broadly. "Aye, that it is lad. The timing for your rescue was quite impeccable. And my Christmas present to you is bein' able ta attend that party, under supervision of course. No sense in ya missin' out on the fun." Beckett began wheeling John out of the infirmary. "But if I so much as see one eyelid start ta droop, it's back ta bed with ya..."

_ssssssssssssssssssssssss_

John stepped out onto the balcony wrapped in the brightly colored Athosian blanket Teyla had given him during the gift exchanging portion of the party. He set the small, battery-powered CD player on the floor, then sat down across from it. He flipped the switch, then scrolled through the numbers until he came to twelve. He sat back and lifted his face to the stars just as the music began.

Oh Holy night played out in stringed instruments, woodwinds, flutes, a harp, and a piano.

John still managed to catch the whisper of the doors opening behind him.

"Beckett's gonna strap you to an infirmary bed if he catches you out here," Rodney said.

"He let me come out here," John replied.

"Getting a little noisy for you too, huh?"

John shrugged. "Just wanted to look at the stars."

John saw movement out of the corner of his eye as someone sat down beside him, but it wasn't Rodney. Teyla placed a comforting hand on John's shoulder.

"It is a good night to look at stars," she said, all bright starlit smiles. She tilted her head toward the radio. "Is this music one of your Christmas songs?"

John nodded. "Yeah, my favorite."

He saw movement on his other side, and this time it was Rodney sitting down by him, with Ronon beside Rodney.

"I pegged you more as a Jingle Bell Rock kind of guy."

John twisted his face in disgust. "I hate that song."

"Oh good, something we have in common."

"Sh!" Teyla said. "I want to hear this music."

They fell into a comfortable silence, even Rodney. The music wasn't loud, but it seemed to fill the entire world, even a little beyond it. John felt wonderfully warm in the blanket with Teyla on one side and Rodney on the other. So warm he felt obliged to start drifting off.

"Hey Sheppard," Ronon said after a time.

Sheppard snapped awake. "Yeah?"

"What're you thinking?"

John smiled, blinking heavily. He wanted to laugh at the Satedan's spontaneous nosiness, but kept the desire in check. It had been an innocent enough question to merit an honest enough answer.

"That someone up there loves me after all."

Rodney snorted, and Teyla shushed him

John kept on smiling. "More than one, actually."

SGA

A/N: Yes! At last! A completed story! I've been having a lot of trouble with the one-shots lately. The muses have grown weary of them and want only chapter fics. Plus I've been working on this other project that I really, really, really need to get done. Bad me, bad! Except I really wanted to do a Christmas fic too. Now that that's out of the way, back to the project.


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